Adaptation

On day two of WonderCon, Fox did its best to take over the convention in Anaheim. The studio showed footage from several of its upcoming films and politely remained mum on Director Bryan Singer’s recent legal troubles.

The clip from X-Men: Days of Future Past, which included a faceoff between Iceman and Sunspot, certainly excited audiences in the Anaheim Convention Center’s Arena. Fox slyly avoided audience questions by saving X-Men to the end of the presentation. In truth, fans had already gotten their fill of footage and Q&A from the other movies’ cast and crew.

Perhaps trying to answer the YA smash hit The Hunger Games, Fox now has its own teen post-apocalyptic movie in The Maze Runner. Director Wes Ball and author James Dashner were both inspired by Ender’s Game, Lord of the Flies and Lost when creating The Maze Runner and it showed in the brief but thrilling preview seen in Anaheim.

The team of showrunner Bernie Su, producer Hank Green, and Pemberly Digital announced their newest Jane Austen web video adaptation at VidCon 2013. Heroine Emma Woodhouse will be modernized as a confident entrepreneur who, of course, places a bit too much faith in her matchmaking prowess.

Su and Green’s first Austen outing, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, was a resounding success. Over 216,000 subscribers watched the 100 episode series. The program won two Streamys and was nominated for five more. A Kickstarter to fund the DVD raised over $462,000, nearly 800% of the $60,000 goal. The series was followed by Welcome to Sanditon, based on one of Austen’s short stories and starring some of the Lizzie Bennet characters.

There’s no word yet on any casting decisions for Emma Approved. However, with the show hitting YouTube in the Fall, fans should know soon enough who is playing the iconic Emma, Mr. Knightly, Frank Churchill and the rest of Highbury.

World War Z is probably the most solid zombie flick we’re going to get for a while. The characters are well-defined, the acting is better than it needs to be, the look is good, and the story is constructed as a pretty compelling mystery. That’s both a plus and a minus for the film. The detective aspect is an innovative take on a genre that already has, within its endless sub-genres, the romantic comedy (this year’s Warm Bodies), and the movie wastes no time getting straight to it. On the other hand, its commitment to the mystery narrative makes the action sequences feel like they were brought over from another movie.

When Gerry (Brad Pitt), the ex-UN agent (his original job function is never made explicitly clear) gets a lead that takes him to Israel, he meets up with an official who apparently foresaw the zombie outbreak and constructed a massive wall around Jerusalem. The guy’s reasoning is simple: “We ignored warning signs before and suffered because of it, this time, I figured, ‘What the Hell?'”

As soon as Gerry’s finished asking questions, someone in the crowd starts performing an impromptu song. No reason, just because. And the static from her microphone alerts the zombies outside the city, who form a massive pile and (SPOILER, though it’s in the trailer) spill out over the wall and overtake the city.

Do you remember the lead up to John Carter? How most people had a big problem with the marketing but many held a faint glimmer of hope that remained until the first reel ran in theaters opening weekend. Yeah, World War Z wishes it was generating that kind of reaction.

Basically, all of the worst parts of the bible would be an upgrade over the current approval rating of the upcoming PG-13 zombie epic. The stench of the film has been brewing for years, delays and behind the scenes instability have not provided any faith of a good adaptation of a book that is already hard to envision in cinemas. The problem is the structure of the book, it is an oral history not a linear narrative, and no one understands how a Brad Pitt saves the world film was the best that could be done.

So consensus is the film will be a terrible, no good, very bad adaptation and the best we are hoping for is a fun diversion wearing a WWZ pelt for warmth. Of course this leads to all the bitching and moaning about how the film’s existence is an affront to the loyal book fans who deserve better. Well cool your jets book worms and hipster wanna bes, there is a silver lining to this story and it alone more than justifies the looming horror of the upcoming film.

When I told my girlfriend I was off to review to the new Stephenie Meyers movie and that, having seen one of the Twilight movies, I had low expectations, she responded, “It could be worse. She could have teamed up with Nicholas Sparks.” “Good point!” I said, and then, a half hour into the film, the two main characters kiss in the rain. Damn.

The Host opens with a voiceover by Donald Sutherland (or at least a very Donald-Sutherland-sounding narrator) stating that war, famine, poverty, and the like have been eradicated from earth. It has been taken over by an alien race of what I’d refer to as “Solar Centipedes” if the film hadn’t bashed the symbol of glowworms into my noodle.

The glowworms apparently are implanted into humans through a delicate process that makes you wonder how they were able to do it seven billion times (and how was the first one implanted?) and the quickest way to tell them apart from the regular humans is that the glowies have blue rings around their eyes — chances are you’ve seen something like them before in a better film. I’m certain.

Their latest victim is Melanie Stryder (Saoirsa Ronan), a plucky teen who tried to avoid capture by leaping through a window. Fortunately, the glowworms have some magic healing spray to bring her back to life and implant one of their kind, known as “Wanderer” into her neck. But Melanie resists, and in one of the worst decisions of the film, is in constant voiceover arguments with Wanderer.

Been wondering exactly what happened to the Dixon brothers before meeting up with Rick Grimes in Atlanta? Well with The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct being tied into the AMC series, you’ll get some of those answers and you can get those answers today. Out today for XBox 360, PlayStation 3, PC and the Wii U is The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. If you take a look below, you get a better idea of what to expect from this stealth FPS experience.

It is fair to say that The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct has its work cut out for it. And not even because of anything that has been seen from the game before today. It is because it will inevitably be compared to Telltale’s The Walking Dead adventure game. Despite being different in almost every way from the art style to gameplay style and the continuity it chooses to follow, parallels will undoubtedly be drawn.

The hardest part will be people giving the game a fair shake and taking it for what it is doing which is trying to give a new experience by trying to combine stealth and FPS gameplay together while putting people in the world of the TV series they have become so invested in. (Hopefully Andrea doesn’t show up until the absolute end.)

Sam Raimi sure knows how to make a successful crowd pleaser, his prequel to the most famous movie ever came out with the first blockbuster opening weekend of 2013. Raking in over $80 Million in its debut frame, Oz: The Great and Powerful is well on the way to becoming the first mega hit of the year.

The film didn’t quite reach Alice in Wonderland numbers, but considering the advantages that film had, and the disadvantages Oz faced, the $80 Million haul is a massive win. Expect to see a sequel get rolling very soon as Disney will try to avoid the pitfalls of franchising Alice and put the pedal to the metal on their shiny new franchise-to-be.

Coming in second place on the weekend was last weeks bomb, Jack the Giant Slayer. Jack continues to defy odds by doing even worse than John Carter at just about every turn. Dropping over 63% from an already weak opening debut and bringing in barely over $10 Million Jack is going to struggle to make $60 Million at the end of its run. Good thing Bryan Singer has X-Men: Days of Future Past to fall back on, because normally a flop like this is death to a big budget director.

The cast list for X-Men: Days of Future Past is starting to get a little ridiculous. Featuring the bulk of the cast from X-Men: First Class and significant portions of the original X-Men trilogy, the film is going to be the most jam-packed mutant spectacular this side of the funny books.

So the most recent casting news should not come as a huge surprise. Deadline is reporting that Bryan Singer has nabbed yet another classic X-Man for his upcoming new film:

Deadline has confirmed the actress will reprise her role as Storm in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men: Days Of Future Past. There had been serious concern this wouldn’t work out, but I’m told it has. The X-Men: First Class will be bolstered by most of the original X-cast, including Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore and Hugh Jackman.

Last week when I spoke about the looming doom that is Man of Steel I might not been clear what I was so worried about. I was not convinced Man of Steel itself was going to be a bad film, I was more worried about what the creative choices of the new Superman movie would mean for the immediate future of the DC cinematic universe.

It looks as if those fears have just been given an unfortunate boost. Rumors are flying that Warner Brothers is about to toss out their current Justice League script because it apparently sucks. Badass Digest is reporting that new writers are on order as the current script is as good as trash:

I’ve now heard from multiple sources that the Will Beall script for Justice League has been scrapped. The story from each source is the same: it’s terrible. Some sources seem to think the whole movie is going to fall apart and never happen, while some believe that Warner Bros will keep moving forward, unwilling to lose the superhero arms race.

Parker starts out strong, spends the next hour doing nothing, then it ends with a good-enough set piece. That’s pretty much the review right there, and it’s going to be a struggle to think of anything more to say.

There’s a lot of things I can expect a Jason Statham action movie to be, but boring is not one of them. When he showed up to the Ohio State Fair dressed as a priest, my hopes soared — Statham unconvincingly costumed: That is funny — and he’s robbing Ohio, the most vile and butt-smelling state! When he scolded one of his teammates for peeping into the fair’s Nudie Tent (these exist? Cool!), I was all but ready to love the movie. When he drove Jennifer Lopez around Palm Beach looking at houses for what seems like eons, I wanted to go home.

Parker’s been portrayed on screen before, in 1967’s Point Blank, where his character’s name was Walker, and he was portrayed by Lee Marvin, and again in 1999’s Payback, where he was Porter and played by Mel Gibson. I gather that the running theme of Donald Westlake’s novels upon which the films are based is that W/Pa/ork/ter is a thief who’s always double-crossed by his gang. You’d think after 50 or so years he’d learn to choose better friends.